Downtown tattoo studio gets special-permit nod from Taunton City Council

Wednesday

Dec 6, 2017 at 11:50 AMDec 7, 2017 at 2:15 PM

Charles Winokoor Taunton Gazette Staff Reporter @cwinokoor

TAUNTON – Ryan Jones has been a professional tattoo artist for more than 10 years. But up until now he’s never had a chance to professionally spread his ink beyond an area zoned as either “industrial” or “highway business.”

That’s about to change.

A unanimous vote Tuesday night by the Taunton City Council granting a special permit will allow the 28-year-old Jones to leave a tattoo parlor on Route 138/Broadway, where he has worked since graduating high school, and open his own business downtown.

Real Arts Studio, which Jones said should be open in February, will fill a storefront vacancy at 27 Main St. in one of three buildings owned by Jay Dorsey within Union Block – an amalgam of six buildings that extends from Weir Street to Merchants Lane.

Besides a tattoo room with two chairs, Jones said he’ll establish an art studio and a retail and art gallery where he eventually hopes to sell his own line of clothing.

Before the vote was taken, Mayor Thomas Hoye Jr., who said he has known Jones and his family for years, strongly endorsed the special-permit petition.

“He’s done a lot of great work at Coyle Cassidy (High School),” said Hoye, where Jones graduated and more recently has shown his paintings, which Hoye called “simply amazing.”

Jones and Dorsey agreed to a request by Councilor Estele Borges that terms and conditions of the lease be made available. Jones also agreed to a request by Councilor Jeanne Quinn that neon lights advertising the business not be used.

The City Council in September voted unanimously to change a zoning ordinance that previously had prohibited a tattoo business from operating in the city’s Central Business District.

That move came a year after the Zoning Board of Appeals, by a 3-to-2 vote, denied a request by Jones to open his business in Weir Village, on the grounds that it would be too close to two churches.

Real Arts Studio will fill a void created more than a year ago when Paint With A Splash, a New Bedford-based business offering art and painting classes and private parties, closed down after opening in 2014.

Dorsey says Jones’s vision for an arts-oriented business in his building is consistent with the mixed-use model Dorsey is pursuing for his downtown properties.

Dorsey and the co-owners of Taunton Antiques Center recently worked with a Boston non-profit group to develop affordable- and market-rate apartments on the second and third floors of three buildings in Union Block.

Dorsey in September said he would honor a letter he submitted in July outlining five “code of conduct items” stipulating, among other things that Jones will not permit body piercing on the premises; will not allow people to loiter out front; and that anything deemed “objectionable” will not be on display in the windows.

Jones said he expects guest tattoo artists from Brazil and other countries to occasionally visit and be hired for their services.

In response to a question from councilor Deborah Carr, Jones said he typically charges $150 per hour for tattoos.

“Is there’s a free one for me I’ll take it,” joked Carr, who said she’s still waiting for her son, who is now 32, to get a heart tattoo with the word Mom inscribed inside.